The Secret Agent

Nominated for 4 Oscars: Best Picture, International Feature, Actor (Wagner Moura) and Casting.

Brazil, 1977. Since 1964, the nation is plagued by a military dictatorship. Technology expert Marcelo is on the run. Not because he did something illegal, but because a rich business man with strong connections has a personal vendetta against him. Marcelo arrives in Recife during Carnaval’s Week in the hope to reunite with his son, but quickly realizes the city is far from the safe refuge he is looking for.

Director Kleber Mendonça Filho made the film as a testament of a time gone by, but which is actually awfully close. “It’s been 50 years, so a lot has changed, but ironically, in the last 10 years, it feels like we have gone back in time in terms of how society behaves. I observed it in Brazil and it’s happening now in the U.S., a certain theater of the absurd. It looks like justice is being served, but justice is being played like in a theatrical performance, and it’s a really scary thing.”

Although THE SECRET AGENT takes place during the dictatorship, the director didn’t want it to be a dictatorship film. “The challenge was to make a film about the logic of that time without ticking all the boxes of the dictatorship movie.” An exciting, dangerous and – sadly – very realistic political thriller in which the secret agents are not only people, but also the memories to a time that must not be forgotten. With THE SECRET AGENT, Kleber Mendonça Filho emphasizes that memories cannot be erased and shows a reconstruction of stories which were almost lost.